and good afternoon to everyone I hope you can understand the well with this mike here my name is above cinema Iron Head of ocean governance at the Institute for Advanced sustainability studies in Pottstown and

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the I A S S that's a some Institute a think tank that is funded by the German government and we are located in part something

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very close to here and we advising all our government with regard to all sorts of sustainability related issues and so the work I'm focusing on this on the ocean so how can we achieve a better and more sustainable use and conservation of the oceans um the talk today is about ocean governance so ocean governance the very technical term and by that we mean basically how we govern how we set of rules how we as societies collectively make decisions with regard to the oceans and here we are really interested how to make more sustainable decisions so as to better protect the oceans um so I have my talk structure live differently like um I'm no 1 really to go through a through a presentation with you so um in order because we're quite nice and small group here I think would be nice to enter a conversation with you so at any time of my talk or if you have any questions please raise your hand and interview last point so I'm really happy also to go away from my presentation just talk with you about this stuff but understand the question I have a presentation to to carry on through so this is a bit up to you how to put to

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best use of my time here together the so

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lot when uh we went in the research and I'm Crusoe research trip

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earlier this year to some Tanzania and to Madagascar to some countries in the West Indian Ocean to see how they're going about ocean sustainability at the moment we met this gentleman on the far right top this is is my alias official men and local fishermen Doris alarm you of provides fish to this on fishing market lecture very nice place place to visit and he told us that In order to really sustain his living he has not he has to go all out up to 300 kilometers off the coast from from this place and putting putting really his life his crew at risk and out there is staying with these little both showed us is little boaters a thing similar size is my stage here and staying out of a couple of days um and competing there with industrial fishing vessels from from countries like like ice here so when we talk about ocean governance so the way how we regulate the oceans we really have to I have to ask ourselves how can we set of rules and implement those rules in a way that global targets and policy objectives that we have plenty of and that we talk a little bit more about this later on how can we translate and down to a level that can really help people like like this may to sustain his livelihood and also to provide food to local markets like the woman dodecyl land so please let me repeat very briefly

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again why the oceans matters so much time in the oceans is really to be the largest part of our planet is free quarter of all planet is covered by oceans but this is just the surface we learned from Markos presentation how far it goes deep and actually 90 per cent of all inhabitants space due to 3 D space of the ocean 90 % just ocean so you can imagine of space for species to live and 2 to 2 and 2 and also create food for follow follow local livelihoods that we early on and also for climate regulations the oceans alone absorb 90 % of all he is just going directly into the ocean so think about a climate regime without our oceans to a quarter of all C O 2 so directly absorbed by the oceans some massive ERM rule to really keep our planet so I'm friendly and and livable so that we as human beings can live them of this is mainly due to the service of the ocean is providing to us employment very important employment um and fisheries in the 1 that 12 million artisanal fisheries fishermen out that actually compared to just 500 thousand in industrial fisheries so you can see really the importance of this small scale fisheries and most of them live in developing countries so um in some some countries like we were speaking of times and the all the Monegasque of those countries and they the coastal communities to a large degree really depend on on on the oceans 2 . 5 billion and people worldwide depend on some proteins from the oceans and this is much bigger 0 when you go to small island developing states of developing countries in some places they they really are not fully dependent on on the food from the ocean but

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nevertheless we have really managed to mess up all ocean systems from the ocean is really in a deep crisis and there's virtually no space left on the ocean without human footprint so on this map here and you can see all the yellowish and an orange and and the words on of a dead rat parts they really give an indication about the status of all oceans and half of all the world's oceans ocean is already severely or heavily impacted by men but this is something that has

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that really happened overnight on this in this little fill in you can see how from the global fishing fleets have expanded to virtually all places in all oceans and started in the 19 fifties and now really up to the year 2000 all areas were completely um on the of fish and all areas sigh impacted by fisheries also this is not

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just I'm taking about fish but it's also having really strong and and and heavy nets being carried over the sea floor and destroying for summer cold water coral reefs and real life that is that is not really needed for fisheries but it's just destroyed through those fishing

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practices so when you know entering into the oceans with new activities the 1 so I don't have to talk a lot about Deep seabed mining that's a great thing having market speaking in front of me but this time actually gives you an idea of how the size of those activities that Marx was speaking about so and you see the coast of of Mexico and these are the sort of Pacific islands and all these areas in the middle of the these license areas so countries like Germany but many other European and reinvest industrialized countries have submitted to um claims or licenses for exploration to these to these areas at the moment is no deep seabed mining those countries are exploring the possibility for deep seabed mining in those areas and what they are looking forward in the in these areas that different type of of of of minerals but these are the so-called manganese nodules and manganese nodules they're full of copper and nickel but also gold and other things like a rare earth minerals and and you all know from that and this type of minerals they're needed for example for mobile phones for off IT technology etc. so actually quite an important link also I think to this convention here because In a way the way how we are shaping our future economy is the way how we as shaping also um IT technology and the way how we using those technologies is really a key factor for the future of our oceans so if you're not managing to have better recycling rates etc. for our um I t a technology is of course a much greater likelihood that these activities become economic at that they make economic sense in the in the future so when we ask yourself what type of

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ocean governance is needed really to get away from the from this crisis then I think it's very clear that we need to combine the conservation the sustainable use there's no way that we're not going to use the oceans given that this and further increasing world population so we have to find a way really to transform the way of what we're doing at the moment we have to become more sustainable if we are to really as human beings to to have the have and future on this on this planet and I think this relatively complicated endeavor spot nicely shown and in this in this little bill not yet as we have taken this from from Oxfam this some UK-based um development NGO and they have amazingly combines a lot we have around here these are these sort of so called planetary boundaries so some type of boundaries that we can't really exceed if we want to um sustained living on our planet and at the same time in the middle there also needs that we as human beings have a society we want to here we want to heed we want to live etc. so we have to keep our system in between those 2 would to barriers in order to to really I have a sustainable future sustainable

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future ocean used so well we have at the moment why haven't we managed in the past to get on this sustained and sustainable pathways and this has a lot to do with the topic of my talk the ocean governance because of this here is actually the system how we are managing the OSA ocean you don't have to really try to read all these little um names behind this acronyms but basically each of these little um acronyms his stands for an organization like the 1 that and markets was referring to this is the International Seabed Authority he is 1 for shipping is another 1 for fisheries and we go on and on and on like this so all these organizations out there but they don't talk to each other and if we have an environment like the ocean where Fisher some they're not really bound by bounded so all pollution I mean this is not confined by any jurisdictional on legal political boundaries and it's just 1 environment but the way how we govern it it's really fragmented is very little um interaction between those different entities so we we really have to find a way to reform the system and the 2 approaches that's for that you can even switch the restart up let's do something really clever and something really really knew what system many that some people and advocate for that I don't want to save its realistic or not but in my talk I want to really focus on the on the current political situation where we in and try to see where our books that we can use in the current political framework to push the system in the right direction so to get away from that to something better and the

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International Convention on the Law of the Sea that's a treaty that we heard about early on this this very beautiful idea how to read and use the oceans for for for human well-being set up a system and I mean this conventions limit like the the the Constitution fall oceans all countries work on the basis of this of this United Nations Convention of the Law the units as out of a structure that you can see here here basically it sets all the zonation um and the further you go out from the coastline the less authority country has so here I mean 12 nautical miles This is basically when you're in Germany it's a little bit like that within the warden see their countries they have almost the same rights to enact rules like they have on land then have 200 nautical miles a bit more than 3 about 50 kilometers that they only have the right to use the mineral resources and the and the living marine resources the fish basically and then you go out and in the water column so it's just the

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water it's the so called high seas and the sea floor the mineral resources on and this is where we learn to know from Marx about this is really government to the benefit of humankind by this 1 authority in based in Kingston but this is the legal system and you can imagine I mean it from a legal weight makes alot of sense but from a from an ecosystem perspective it doesn't because I mean wow how should organisms know when the city on the sea floor isn't it I don't know just Ceciley the organism and then they then they have some other life stages they go into the water column how should they node and then entering a different legal system but is just just as just the system outside of and we have to to work with and try to find better ways

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to really and work with the ocean and he on this matter you can see basically all on this will map the all everything what is in view that's and the 200 nautical miles zones and have and spoken about right the the the rate edition that's the continental shelves that can countries I mean if if a country sits on the continental shelf they can also claim some extra see miles and say look there's also belongs to us and we can also use those mineral resources on the floor but everything what is left in white this is also what we call in areas beyond national jurisdiction that's the high seas the water and the seafloor that's that's the all the minerals and for these areas is almost 50 % of all the worlds of the surface we haven't got a really good uh working treat your reader working convention for all the countries from 2 to work together to protect the environment so what is urgently needed is a new convention to to to protect those areas there's some good

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examples where organizations have started to what's protecting those areas and and this is the in the northeast Atlantic that's a very nice example where you see here this is the the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is the area where the continental shelf uh the continental plates sorry from the from the Americas and and from Eurasia art to this arm moving and away from each other and and we have the underwater massive mon so from the sea floor you have mountains going up for 5 thousand meters it's all on water you go there by boat you see nothing when you start to die to see what we also called the Alps of the deep sea and they're are extremely by would always very productive this their massive fish uh and um populations there there's species like these humpback whales in ways that that go there and when you go further down you have this fantastic things like where you have hot water coming out of of the sea floor where you have some some other type of underwater Vulcanus was very very special and marine life but I mean something like this on land for short National Park protected area and fantastic all the way down but all that we haven't got a system to make a circle around it and say look this is protected don't go there this is so special in the northeast Atlantic we have ahead of at the start for that now those countries here in Europe and including the European Union they have worked together to set up this what we call this the 1st marine protected area network so that set up those marine protected areas here and they even managed to work with another organization to close them for fisheries so these areas are sort of protected unfortunately this only counts for the European countries so of another country like China or Russia whoever wants to go then to deep seabed mining this wouldn't be um some limited by this protected area network so we really have to go global I mean this is a start is a good start but we have to find global rules that apply to everyone in order to make make this place also save in the future for all those pieces of the In addition to

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the those examples which I think are quite promising we also have a have a good situation the moment when it comes to oceans it's not only that the society is such a thing is fantastic that the Convention like Republican take this topic up but also in policy making the oceans are really high on the political agenda and that started very much in 2012 was a huge of you and summoned all heads of state and governments came together in a real that was 20 years after the 1st real some of this is why it was also called real plus 20 and they

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basically agreed to the very important things when it comes to the ocean is really this point on on how to protect the marine biodiversity out there on in the open oceans and there was a general agreement consensus that countries want to develop a legally binding agreement even for the protection of the biodiversity of them this is

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1 process the other 1 is from you might have heard about the Sustainable Development Goals that's a set of global quite ambitious targets of the global community is signing up to i will talk more about it In my the remainder of the talk and and 1 of those schools about oceans which is is quite

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important benadryl brawls very very quickly if rules for the rest of my presentation this new agreement and that and I was referring to for the high seas at the moment is um and being discussed at the United Nations actually a series of 4 quite important meetings it's coming to an end into lies or countries hopefully by then will have agreed on the main elements of such a future of agreement and this is about the how to create marine protected areas but also how to reduce the environmental impact assessments of all activities is very important how to use those marine genetic resources are there many of those um organisms um there can be used for example for pharmaceutical uses and there's quite a high economic potential in those organisms out there but at the moment we 1st come 1st serve I mean you takes it gets the benefit so we have to think also about the way how to share the benefits among them the different countries and humankind as such and it's about capacity building at the moment there roughly 10 countries that's 15 that are able to go out there to do Deep research so it's not really a lot of time and we really have to to to to create capacities that every they're all countries and can and participate in those activities and I would just go where tree over it I meant to mention that we hope that actually by the the end of this year there's a recommendation going to the to the United Nations and then by the end of next year this is in agreement about be negotiations of such and such a new term agreement so all in all it would take many more years to in order to finalize its and it's something that would happen overnight it needs to enter into force but it these this this process going into the right direction and we have these examples that I was talking about early

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on like those regional a marine protected area networks of all talking variable and briefly for the rest of my my time about the Sustainable Development Goals this is as you can see a really a set of goals of discovering basically everything is about making the world a better place about um reducing poverty hunger is about good health I mean everything is in them and what what is relevant for Sustainability for ICT talking about the oceans this goal he STG 14 and why I think it's so important for the ocean health is because for the 1st time the oceans have been included in such a prominent manner within the broader framework of sustainability and this brings me back again to deep seabed mining because if you want to protect the oceans we have to create those linkages from things like responsible consumption and production to the oceans if we want to reduce marine litter these things we really have to think about how to deal with all problems on land so as to they're not arriving in the

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oceans this goal on on the oceans so our topic today is then again it really is sort of divided into many sub targets are not going into it in detail about it's about reduction of marine pollution of sustainable fisheries about also prohibiting harmful subsidies that are in any way out very often the reason for for not very sustainable you ocean uses is also about how to to help building capacities and in countries and like it like in in Africa but the

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key thing I mention that early on for the oceans is really making those linkage is very clear and and and from what I almost and saying early on I think it's very very clear that it's very important to to recognize that we can only and make progress in protecting the oceans if we're able to address those cross-linkages to reduce marine litter can only be done by finding a more sustainable ways so in order for the production consumption on land if we want to have some less pressure on on all fish resource we have to find different ways how to basically feed the world if we want to have employment that is based on the oceans we have to find ways that uh that that that that employment is done in a way that is that is sustainable for for marine and coastal

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ecosystems so this and you can actually is quite soon in the month time and this is the world's 1st U N summit on the ocean so roughly I mean they expect something around 8 to 10 thousand some delegates from all over the world many of them prime ministers heads of state and government they all come together in New York to knowledge agree on the role how to implement those

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st for the oceans and we have developed from our institute recommendations that are at 3 really concrete steps how to best and get there they're not really a revolution but they're sort of 3 let's say small steps to make the system that we have a little bit more functional having is what is really important that we need to have some type of baseline we need to know where we are when it comes to things like marine protected areas marine pollution etc. then we have our global targets the ones that we mentioned in the STG jeez so we need a system to bring this together where how we we we want to get in 10 years time and how do we met the way in between and in New York countries will make commitments they've go there was say we do

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this we do that so we have now a system to really put on the paper or we can get to a system let's put it that way where we would be able to monitor very clearly where we are and also provide some transparency to show some of other countries are delivering for the oceans since it's really connected network it's not alone is sufficient if countries to something on their own but countries need to work together so it's very important to to create systems by countries have a better cooperation of coordination between themselves and this is something that cannot only help the ocean but there's something where the oceans can even be a driver for better international cooperation in areas so they're all very often contested when it comes to 2 international cooperation the and so this is really a um

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at the end of my talk and I wanted to put this picture up here which is um taken from a from a study that is coming out of various will also on the occasion of the of the year um you and summoned by the International Council of Science and we have been contributing to this but much like this picture because it really puts the ocean at the center and Underwood what don't want to say that the ocean is the most important thing but has it has really to change perspective and to think about sustainability and the way

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how we want to interact with our uh with our sort of fellow human beings with the with the environment from a notion perspective because as as remember most part of of the out of the ocean they of the word is oceans the ocean really needs the

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cooperation but the oceans also at the end of the line so everything ends up in the ocean so it's something like an indicator of how well you're really able to design a sustainable future for our planet and as such and and basically in the middle of this is also where it comes down us as individual person that's also our own on our behavior behavior the way how we sort of shape or data lies all this we will play an important role how we're as human beings um able to to use due course to a more sustainable future thanks a lot it was a pleasure talking to you

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have to thank you very much about that I think they have like 3 minutes left for some short questions for instance maybe if there are any thank you for your presentation and I

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was wondering whether you would be able to say a few words about where to take on the role of Germany going into the STG conference and going into whereas Germany going to push for within Europe within the Conference is very

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briefly I I in Germany is actually a relatively active tho with regard to this STG conference um and

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also with regard to sustainability as such and I think very nice indication is this depending on your own know this hold over there I mean and basically all the different ministries in Germany actually up pushing the of ocean agenda quite substantially at the moment it's the Ministry of Research having created this view of the oceans is the Ministry of Development Cooperation that have just issued a 10 point action plan where they really put ocean sustainability in development cooperation really at center stage the Ministry of Environment of funding many projects and in in different parts of the world so all in all this a lot happening at at uh at this scale on the 1 hand on the other hand we also have huge problems at home I mean not really able to reduce the time for example the nutrient inputs into the Baltic Sea into the North Sea is a big problem all these inputs coming from from land have also difficulties where's my thing roughly 30 % of all waters are covered by marine protected areas in Germany we have difficulties agreeing management plans for that so a lot has to be done on a tame on but I think this from the the will of man and and the oceans have it have a relatively high and and a high on the political agenda Germany as such yeah and

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thank you and I was wondering if

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you see any potential quality in a on landed informing for example I have aquaponics over stuff like that to take the focus off the ocean for you know fish demand and energy demand in thing and put it on land in and get to to the supply from from there I think that's also very and the

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important question I mean at the end of the term in this way you pointing and it's connected right and and when we think about the oceans very important to think also about solutions that can be found found elsewhere and um I mean when it comes to to the the food from the ocean's me at the moment in this I think last year was the first one we are where we actually had more aquaculture then fish from from whitefish I'm not saying that aquiculture's this solution but but it shows that we really have to come to a point where that the system is not really delivering all the demands that we have some that are coming from then and solutions that we you or and suggesting is certainly have to be seen in in in such a such a context see about this press back to to deep seabed mining so if y entering such a new activity when we know the ocean is at this very bad states is why at all now entering into a new and activity that is space just expanding the let's say the the our economic growth model that is not working on land properly why expanding it now to the oceans and why not sort of say OK I'm not saying we shouldn't do that at all deep-sea done but I say let's weights let's keep that let's 1st let this for the future generations to decide that work on alternatives like recycling a circular economy and other models that we have and haven't really started to to properly you put into place a cake 1 last question and then we're out of time here thanks for the positive side I

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with the media coverage concerning the dishes who talked about or for instance so when it comes to Michael plastics in the ocean I mean always good to have as much media coverage as possible um but I have to say it all in all I'm quite quite happy about the the huge public interest in this topic and and there many different arms of um yet players societal actors that are really now I'm looking into the ocean I mean I think this this meeting here and and this is this this is the topic of the of the new media mention of things a very good example

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examples I mean today it is a notion atlases and being launched by the both Foundation under this

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novel really widely distributed through different newspapers and I think there many many

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of these topics sums which I think are very good and 2 thirds of finish this they're finds slightly optimistic that we are able to change course because we know so much about the ocean as you have never known before it's so high in the public awareness as it has never been before and also the politicians there we have it on their radar screen when we had the G 7 summit 2 years ago here in in Germany was the topic of 4 angular America Barrack Obama all small on they were talking about ocean sustainability and plastics and the oceans so I'm not sure that it's being delivered but at least it's them and I think we are able to if we want to be able to deliver yeah thank you very much the best end and also for giving us some optimistic keep the clothing words and bringing this really important issue here to the Republika give it seems to

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be a side issue but you know it's it's always very connected this society issues and talking about what's going on not even only in that it would thank you very much for you here

Inhaltliche Metadaten

The degradation of the marine environment has thus far outpaced the development of international ocean governance. In 2017 the international community has the opportunity to agree on concrete steps to improve ocean sustainability. States will have to decide on the negotiation of a new agreement for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity on the “High Seas”. The UN Ocean Conference in June will seek to agree commitments from States and other stakeholders to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals for the oceans, seas, and marine resources. This talk will explore what is needed to improve the way we govern and manage the oceans and what can be expected from current policy...